As a Client Advisor, one of the most common questions I hear from my clients is, “What is the best way to encourage reluctant end users to adopt Salesforce?” In the past, they’ve struggled to motivate their sales team to embrace new technologies, as many of the technologies introduced were met with complaints or non-compliance. Most of these tools not only changed the salesperson’s routine, but inadvertently created more work. Because of these negative experiences, the thought of investing more money into CRM technologies has clients concerned that this, too, will prove to be another fruitless initiative.

From my experiences as a salesperson and sales leader, I know first hand that salespeople embrace activities that are efficient and profitable. In order for salesforce.com to deliver their desired experience, it needs to be implemented with the end user in mind. Fortunately, Salesforce is engineered to demonstrate benefits at every level, thus making it an ideal platform for salespeople and management alike.

Salesforce is designed from the ground up to help companies and their salespeople generate more revenue, sell more quickly, and build long-term client relationships. It's a tool to help management stay on top of the pipeline, forecast better, and gain insight into how their salespeople spend their time. Yet often overlooked is that the Salesforce Platform enables the salesperson to increase sales by helping to streamline the sales process. The following are some ideas and strategies that have helped my teams, my clients, and myself:

1. Empower Your Sales Reps
   
   Often when companies make the investment in salesforce.com, management enforces usage with the attitude of “if it is not in Salesforce, it didn’t happen.” With this approach, the inherent risk is that sales people become reluctant users. It is integral to turn this message around. Give your salespeople the power to facilitate strategic conversations with their managers by encouraging them to answer account questions with “It is in Salesforce, did you check there?” Not only does this prompt your entire organization -- from salespeople to managers to executives -- to use the platform more thoroughly, it opens up critical planning conversations between the sales person and his or her manager.
2. Elevate Efficiency
   
   Salespeople hate having to constantly update spreadsheets on deals. A great alternative is the reporting functionality from salesforce.com to print pipeline reports and details. Utilize dashboards to keep everyone up to date on their rankings and performance levels, and strengthen internal team communication with Chatter. Taking advantage of all the tools makes for a more efficient and transparent process.
3. Key Executive Involvement
   
   Executive support is critical to any process; Salesforce adoption is no exception. Use Salesforce reports on company-wide calls, reference specific dashboards and what they inform about the sales process. For instance, mention that Janice Smith closed a deal that is 18% of her annual quota, or that the Southeast had twice as many sales calls as the West this quarter. This way, the team sees that logging meetings in Salesforce is tracked and valued by their management.
4. Prioritize With Dashboards
   
   If you expect your salespeople to log ten face-to-face meetings a week, then create a dashboard to track face-to-face meetings. If the pipeline is a primary concern, use the dashboards to reflect pipeline. Most salespeople want to know the criteria by which they are judged in order to measure themselves against their peers; salespeople using Salesforce have up-to-the-minute details as to where they stand.
5. Training Videos
   
   Videos are a quick, easy, and accessible -- perfect for learning new features. Create a library of training videos, and send them out regularly. Learning styles are highly dependent on the individual, but a salesperson is much more likely to watch a video than to read through an instruction document.
6. Mobility
   
   Most salespeople have smartphones nowadays. If your salesperson has a meeting at 4:00 pm on a Friday, she should be able to log the details of that meeting on her phone with the Salesforce1 mobile app. She shouldn’t have to go back to the office to put in the details, nor should she be expected to remember all the details of the meeting when she gets back to the office on Monday. Encourage your team to use their mobile devices for a more efficient sales process. To see how sales teams are driving value from the Salesforce1 mobile app in this webcast: Salesforce1: 5 Things You Need to Know. 

This is by no means an exhaustive list — but rather a few guidelines to help you think critically and thoroughly about your implementation. Salesforce is a powerful platform that can streamline your business processes and deliver more revenue. When implementing, be sure to communicate the benefits to the end user, create a multi-channel change management plan, and incorporate training that drives user adoption and understanding. The more your sales team likes and embraces Salesforce, the more value you will gain from it. To find out more about how top organizations use Salesforce, download our free report, The State of Salesforce Annual Review, or benchmark yourself against leading industry trends.